Apparently, though, and without our knowing it, you and I have passed through an inter-dimensional portal and have entered a black-is-white, up-is-down twilight zone in which asking for information pertaining to a public figure constitutes participation not only in a McCarthyite “smear machine,” but also in a “campaign, orchestrated by controversial anti-Arab figures,” with the goal of “smearing and intimidating the Arab-American community.” . . . The line separating inquiry and bigotry is, it would seem, rather thin.

Yesterday, I saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball rant for 10 minutes about Sen. Ted Cruz as a latter-day Joe McCarthy for having dared to ask questions about possible ties between Hagel and foreign governments. Chuck Hagel isn’t just some random citizen who has been grabbed off the street for interrogation about his loyalties.

No, Chuck Hagel is under consideration as Secretary of Defense, and the Senate therefore has every right — indeed, it has a solemn duty — to investigate his associations with groups that seem rather secretive about their funding.

[W]hen “news” becomes intertwined with activism, it is no longer news. It becomes perforce a narrative aimed at advancing a story in a particular ideological direction, and — in many cases — it uses rhetorical tricks, bias by omission and commission, and “talking point memos” or press-releases, already slanted by nature of their provenance, to stand in as supposedly reporter-produced interaction or reportage.
The disturbing fact that we continue to allow interest groups to hide behind phony and baseless charges of racism or harassment — which, when law-enforcement is introduced, is meant to create the conditions whereby reporters will hesitate to pursue a certain line of inquiry — is a national tragedy, and a direct result of the corruption of language through the twin pillars of the leftist’s structural attack on individualism and classical liberalism as born out of the (steadily deconstructed) Enlightenment: political correctness and identity politics.

It’s odd that so many liberals nowadays seem to be willing to suppress First Amendment freedoms in the name of “progress.”

Comments

Can we start suppressing the First Amendment freedoms of leftists now? Yes, yes, I know, we don’t want to become like them. The problem is the left has aggressively set the rules of engagement and slanted them in their own favor so we can’t play nice and expect to win this debate. We can’t let them have it both ways, demanding a freedom in the name of our principles that they then refuse us in the name of theirs. That’s not an honest debate, that’s tyranny.

It won’t take much. Remember, the left isn’t used to pushback. All we need to do is make them live up to the standard they set for us, a la Alinsky. Make a few prominent lefties feel afraid to speak out on issues they feel are important and they’ll turn on a dime and start defending free speech again. Once that happens, apply Alinsky again and make them live up to the new standard for us too.

http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

We need more diversity (conservative voices) in the media. I do not fear debate, I just wish there was a debate. As for what Jeff G says, “hell yeah!”

DaveO

One would think the many Jews in the Senate would look at the Hagel nomination and, knowing that “Personnel Is Policy,” will understand that Obama lied, is lying, and will continue to lie to them about his intentions toward Israel.

One would think. But I’m thinking the Jews in the Senate are as anti-Zionist as Iran.
Schumer’s endorsement of Hagel will rank up their with Bush-43’s assessment of Putin.

FOAF

A lot of people have concluded from the fact that Jews still overwhelmingly voted for Obama that Jewish support for Israel has dropped. However I don’t think that is much true, there is just an extreme amount of denial. Denial is a coping mechanism developed over centuries of persecution. But it is not necessarily an effective one.

http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

Shorter form: You can’t ask any questions about a Democrat without being called a h8er…

http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

Bush, I think wanted to think well and hopefully of another human being.

Schumer is a party whore who would vote Julius Steicher as SecEd if Obama wanted him.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

The end goal is all to the Leftist. They’re serious when they say ‘by any means necessary’ – that’s one of the very few things they utter that you can believe.

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

DaveO: Have you ever heard of the Self-Hating Jew? Also, another factor is what I mentioned in another comment here. Though these Senators may be born Jewish, they have sold their souls to Leftism, which requires that you break all of your ties with Tradition and Morality and Truth [hmmm….sounds like a cult, eh?].

DaveO

Yes, I have. The Senators aren’t anti-semitic – their support of the PLO and its inheritors are proof enough of that. It’s their anti-zionism. Hagel isn’t anti-semitic. He too loves the descendents of the PLO. Israel’s existence is an inconvenient truth. He will provide an excellent lightning rod that focuses our attention on the drawdown while Obama does his business in support of Iran.

That definition of anti-semitic may be technically correct, but Judenhass is a perfectly accurate word to apply to those who hate Jews without also hating other, non-Jewish semitic peoples.

http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

This is no new game plan. CAIR seems to exist mainly to pursue it, including spending a great deal of time and effort shielding some who were later convicted of crimes and terror connections it was “racist” to even ask about. They didn’t invent it, either – Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Al Sharpton used the counterattack to stifle any inquiries into their personal financial arrangements for decades, and racism is the default defense for corrupt black or Hispanic public officials.

http://www.facebook.com/daniel.carson.1654 Daniel Carson

it’s a sad day when we hear this nonsense over across the sea’s But a Blatant sorry excuse to see this type of behavior in the WH and American soil, If these Mussie want to live here in the states than they need to abide by our Laws period….

http://www.facebook.com/daniel.carson.1654 Daniel Carson

remember mussie you came here, leave your BS back to where you left…

http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

The Left has made a deal with the Devil in their coordinations with Islam.